Eulogy

My dear brother-in-law, Dr. Carl Walters, who is the department chair of Religious Studies at St. Andrews Presbyterian College in Laurinburg, North Carolina gave a very moving tribute/eulogy at Charlie's Celebration of Life Service September 6, 1998 in Houston, Texas. Prior to composing the eulogy, Carl met with family and friends to elicit our experiences and memories. I dug it out last night...I had not read it in over nine years. There were so many wonderful things I had forgotten. In the final 2 months, when the cancer had spread to his brain, causing immense pain, loss of vision, and some confusion, I believe it brought out and intensified his true essence. Charlie was a kind, warm and loving man. I want to share Carl's eulogy in entirety:

"When Jesus was just about to leave his disciples, his beloved friends, and soon to pass through the deep valley of terminal suffering and the door we call death, to enter into His transcendent, universal, and eternal life, to return home, he spoke to his friends saying, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you, not as the world gives, give I unto you.
Let not your hearts be troubled. Neither let them be afraid."

Yesterday morning, at Cindy and Marc Lenoir's home, Sally and I talked about Charlie. More precisely, Sally shared with me some of the wonderful things Charlie said to her during these last past months. Unsurprisingly, some were really funny. Like when he was about to get another dose of pain medication, he said to Sally, "OK, but will you be the designated driver?" Some of the things he said were heart-breakingly sweet, some profound. All were touching. He called his nurses his "soft cotton balls".

I think it might be fair to say a Charlie Tilson translation of Jesus' comforting and reassuring words to his friends and family would be what he said to Sally one day recently:
"Don't cry, Booby, I want you to be Orangie and Smart."
Let not your hearts be troubled.

And what Charlie said to Sally suddenly, one day near the end-and-the new-beginning: "God is showing me a movie". And after waiting a respectful silence Sally asked, "What is it like, what do you see?" Charlie said, "Look how pretty and fluffy the clouds are."
Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

The Apostle Paul, in the 19th Chapter of his first letter to the Christians in Corinth, concludes a hymn to Christ-like love with these words "So faith, hope, and love abide - these three - but the greatest of these is love" Faith (or trust), hope, and love - these three last forever, but the greatest of these is love.

And the disciple called John wrote in his first letter, "God is love, and whosoever loves is born of God and knows God, for God is Love." True lovers come from God and go to God, for God is love. Charlie was a true lover.

Charlie loved Sally and Sally loved Charlie in a very special, unique, exemplary way. Not long ago, Charlie called their love their "elusive treasure."

Puerta Vallarta, Mexico 1995

Yesterday afternoon in the Lenoir's living room, I listened for two hours to dear friends of Sally and Charlie remember Charlie. Glenda Joe, Karin McFarland, Bob Wickham, Cindy LeNoir, and Cousin Pam Payne. All of these dear friends agreed that the love between Sally and Charlie was graceful and mutually fulfilling. As one person put it, "Charlie and Sally were one, knowing them has renewed my faith in love."

Scotch taped to the ceiling in Charlie and Sally's home above the hospital bed in the living room, there is right now a paper which reads in red Valentine's script, "Sally Loves Charlie". Valentine's was their special day. Last Valentine's Day was the last day Charlie played the piano in public. Those who heard him that night say it was the best he ever played, beyond himself, outside himself. One friend said, "he was playing to save his life". And in a sense he did.
Charlie loved Sally and Sally loved Charlie in a very special, mutually supportive, respectful, and life-enhancing way. They still do.

Charlie and Sally


Charlie was a true lover. Charlie loved his family, or more accurately, his families, all of us, every one of us individually. Of course he loved uniquely his mother and father, and his sister, but also his step parents, and all of Sally's family, even a rather come-lately brother in law by marriage. But his relation to his father-in-law, Allan, was something to behold! Two musicians, older and younger Buddies, there in the living room of the Harris family home in New Orleans. Jamming. Laying it down. Charlie with his piano and Allan with his clarinet. Jazz and Blues, and Old Favorites. Sweet notes. Hot licks. In tune. In sync. Anticipation. Improvisation. And infinite patience until they got it just right. I'll never forget those two together. They will live together in my mind and heart forever. A special friendship. A special love. And each could not wait to tell the other his latest, outrageous off-color joke. I can hear the guffaws now.

Allan and Charlie, November 1997, 3 days before Charlie's diagnosis

Charlie was a true lover. He loved people. He loved his friends. And he had many - many more real friends than most people. Because he was open and positive and interested and receptive; his friends describe friendship with Charlie as immediate, spontaneous, and enduring. As Pam said yesterday, "Charlie never met a stranger". And as Glenda said, "He attracted friends like crazy!". And as Pam reminded us, on festive occasions, "he never let a lady pass an evening without a dance!" Honest, direct, loyal, putting his friendship into practice. "Actions speak louder than words", that was Charlie. He just didn't talk the talk, he walked the walk. When he was told that the doctors had done all they could do, his concern was not for himself but for Sally.
Charlie was a true lover. He loved music, his art, his work - yes he had his playful, jokester, relaxed and very funny side - but he was a consummate professional; dedicated, disciplined, and responsible. He set high standards for himself and he worked hard to meet them. And his fellow musicians recognized him for his excellence.

Probably Karin put it best when she said: "I just loved his music. He played from his soul. I learned from Charlie. We were musical soul mates. We were 'on'. As my children would say in HipHop language: Charlie was The Bomb. He was Phat. He was a bag of chips and then some."

Sally and Karin

When Sally called Ellen and me in North Carolina to tell us that Charlie's cancer was terminal, immediately a simple song I sang so many years ago around campfires at summer camps came into my heart-mind and has been singing itself there daily since. "All things shall perish from from under the sky. Music alone shall live, music alone shall live, music alone shall live, never to die". Charlie was music. Charlie will never die.

Many ancient philosophers spoke of the eternal music of the spheres. Modern physicists and astronomers say that since creation the Universe has been singing. The Vedas and the Upanishads, sacred Scriptures of Hinduism, teach that the sound, the tone OM is not only symbolic for, but actually is, the all-encompassing Divine Brahman. Poets tell us that music is the language of the immortals. And we all know Musique est la languge du couer et du monde - the language of the heart and the world. One day recently, Charlie told Sally that in heaven he would not have to work so hard! He could compose and practice. Play on, Dear Brother, play on!

Charlie loved a good joke and a good laugh and to give laughter and joy to to others. Indeed, all his friends agree, his whole life was joie de vivre, an "Ode to Joy". I personally enjoyed watching Charlie telling his jokes as much as the jokes themselves! He really got into it, dramatically

Chico (Charlie), Harpo (Sally), and Groucho Marx (cousin Pam), at the Houstonian Hotel, a regular gig for Charlie and the band.

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Charlie at the Park Bar and Grill in The Woodlands, on his final night after a long run in 1996, appearing as "Charlie Vee" tacky Vegas Lounge performer.

Laughter is not only an effective tonic for the blahs, it is also a profound implicit profession of Faith. It says, symbolically, that for this moment at least we let go, we don't try to control, we allow ourselves to be vulnerable. When we poke fun at our common human foibles and frailties we are saying that we are finite, we really can't "save" ourselves...that's beyond us...in the Hands and the Arms of the Infinite. Charlie kept his keen wit throughout his illness. On one occasion, when a nurse walked in while he was being given what we might politely call a "rectal" , Charlie said, "HI, and the I is for invasive!".
Let not your hearts be troubled.

What I personally experienced definitively with Charlie was his kindness, his sensitivity to the feelings of others, his respect, tolerance, and acceptance of others as worthy persons, even when he did not understand them or agree with them. Also, he really listened - rare and precious human trait. Charlie, while honest, was careful and gentle. I thought of him sincerely as "Charlie Good-Heart".

Oslo, Norway 1991

In our morning conversation yesterday, Sally said that when she and Charlie first met the most important thing about Charlie for her was his integrity, his self-respect, and his respect for others. He tried to see and hear all sides. He was an effective mediator and a wise soul for his youthful age. Charlie said that he wanted to live his life so as to have no regrets about how he related to people and handled situations. And, as we all know, he succeeded beautifully in this life goal. Although I, we all, could go on and on, I must close with these reflections and remembrances. I will do so with some brief quotations selected by Sally and a final word from Charlie.
First, from Sally:
Be not like him who sits by the fireside and watches the fire go out, then blows vainly on the dead ashes. Do not give up hope or yield to despair because of that which is past, for to bewail the irretrievable is the worst of human frailties.

Death removes but the Touch and not the awareness of all good. And he who has lived one Spring or more possesses the spiritual life of one who has lived a score of Springs.

When you part from your friend, you grieve not, for that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.

The Fjords in Flam, Norway 1991

Marion, Virginia 1995

Farewell to you and the youth I have spent with you. It is but yesterday we met in a dream. But now our sleep has fled and our dream is over and it is no longer dawn. The noontime is upon us and our half waking has turned to a fuller day, and we must part. If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more, we shall speak again together and you shall sing me a deeper song.

And ever has it been known that love knows not it's own depth til the hour of separation.

Perhaps they are not the stars, but rather openings in Heaven, where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy

The last curved shaped vase on the left with a yellow marigold is Charlie's. His name is engraved on the base. A gently flowing bayou with graceful willow trees are right behind the plot.

The headstone engraving at Metairie Lakelawn Cemetery

Allan Harris, Sally's sister, and Sally travel to Myrtle Beach South Carolina in November 1998 to spread Charlie's ashes

And Charlie gets the last word:

One day back in July after Sally - as she did every day - described what was happening in their backyard to Charlie after he lost his eyesight when the cancer spread to his brain: the flowers that were in bloom, the birds visiting the feeders, Charlie said: "Soon we will build a flower box for our music". And so they did ... And so they did.


Eulogy delivered By Dr. Carl Walters, Unity Church of Christianity September 6, 1998

Carl, wife Ceci and their twins Jose and Anna